RULFO

The heat woke me just before midnight. And the sweat. The woman's body was made of earth, layered in crusts of earth; it was crumbling, melting into a pool of mud. I felt myself swimming in the sweat streaming from her body, and I couldn't get enough air to breathe. From her mouth bubbled a sound very like a death rattle.

I went outside for air, but I could not escape the heat that followed wherever I went.
There was no air; only the dead, still night fired by the dog days of August.

Not a breath. I had to suck in the same air I exhaled, cupping it in my hand before it escaped. I felt it, in and out, less each time...
until it was so thin it slipped through my fingers forever.

I mean, forever.

I have a memory of having seen something like foamy clouds swirling above my head, and then being washed by the foam and the sinking into the thick clouds. That was the last thing I saw.